Skift Take

Big travel companies have the resources to plan major tech overhauls to integrate AI, but it’s taking longer than some had expected.

Justin Dawes

Executives of top travel companies continue to emphasize that AI will transform the industry — even if it’s taking longer than expected.

While executive tend not to talk publicly about AI as often as they did in 2023, many CEOs of the biggest travel companies still are. 

Below are comments about AI during earnings calls this month by execs at Booking Holdings, Amex GBT, Airbnb, and Tripadvisor. 

Booking Holdings: The Connected Trip 

Glenn Fogel, president and CEO of Booking Holdings, has a vision for what he calls the “connected trip.” It’s the idea of a seamless travel experience, with the consumer being able to book all parts of a trip in one place, and each supplier having easy access to that traveler’s data.

Fogel believes the latest advancements of AI are key to making that dream a reality. 

• “In order to achieve the easier, more personalized experience of the connected trip, we have always envisioned AI technology at the center of this vision. Our teams of AI experts continue to draw on their valuable experience from using AI extensively for many years as they work to further incorporate this technology into our platforms. We believe our proprietary data, along with our resources and scale, position us well to build compelling AI-powered offerings over time.”

Amex GBT: Customer Service and Productivity 

David Thompson, chief information officer for Amex GBT, discussed in detail how the company is moving AI pilots into the implementation phase. It’s a component of $100 million in savings opportunities the company expects to realize this year.

The business travel agency said earlier this year that it had assembled a team focused on implementing AI across the company. 

• “We are adopting next-generation AI technologies focused across four key objectives: increased service efficiencies, increased engineering velocity, streamline our financial processes, and enabling our workforce. These four areas account for approximately 70% of our total adjusted operating expenses, representing a huge opportunity to continue driving productivity improvements.”
• “Amex GBT is looking to harness the power of AI to gain insights from our two largest communication channels to understand why clients are contacting us, which in turn allows us to direct them to the most efficient channel to meet their needs. To garner these insights, we are utilizing our own internally deployed large language model, which sits behind Amex GBT firewalls and is not available to the public internet.”
• “With [the GitHub] development copilot, we have measured a 20% productivity increase in test case creation, code documentation. and new user story development.”
• “Finally, two proofs of concept have been approved for expansion: Our intelligent virtual assistant [IVA] and our servicing conversational copilot. The IVA is intended to provide customer identification, intent, and authentication to start automating processes prior to connecting to a travel counselor. Our conversational copilot will be enabled to provide quick access to customer and client information without the need for a material investment in structured data stores. The expected outcome of both initiatives is the reduction of manual effort for our servicing team. They will spend less time copying and pasting and more time servicing the customer. That means a better customer experience and lower operating costs.”

Airbnb: A New AI-Powered App Will Take ‘Years’

Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky said it will take years to rebuild Airbnb into a fully AI-powered digital travel concierge that learns and adapts to each individual user.

Last year, the Airbnb CEO told Skift CEO Rafat Ali the company would be “rebuilding the entire app with AI at the center” by May 2024. 

• “When [ChatGPT launched], I think we all got incredibly excited. It was kind of like the moment probably some of us first discovered the Internet or maybe when the iPhone was launched. And when it was launched, you had the feeling that everything was going to change.”
• “I think that’s still true. But I think one of the things we’ve learned over the last nearly two years since ChatGPT launched is that it’s going to take a lot longer than people think for applications to change.”

TripAdvisor: Early Positive Signs with ‘Trips’ AI Trip Planner

TripAdvisor first released its AI-powered trip planner, Trips, in July 2023 and has made updates since then. 

Matthew Goldberg, president and CEO of Tripadvisor, said that travelers who have used the tool have generated an average of 15 times more revenue than TripAdvisor’s platform-wide average. The company recently added 20 new languages and 30 new regions to the tool, and it has scaled AI-powered review summaries for restaurants and experiences.

• “It’s still early, but the product enhancements we’re rolling out are driving meaningfully higher monetization among our highest engaged members and app users.”
• “This higher monetization has been consistent as we’ve begun to scale our efforts, driven primarily by experiences bookings today, but with real upside as we introduce more in-app booking across other categories in the future. The formula is simple. When we keep travelers engaged on our platform, we have more opportunities to monetize — not just through clicks, but through higher value transactions as well.”
• “We’re leveraging AI to think about how we augment our customer service and other parts.”

Quotes have been edited for length and clarity.